Need a good company to upgrade my pc

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David Stokes

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I cuurently have PII 450 with a 20gb hard drive which I bought from (gasp) Tiny about 5 years ago. At the time it was a piece of top spec kick-butt machniery and now it's wheezing a bit and needs a sit down and a cup of tea before trying anything too strenuous.

SO, I would like you fine people to let me know who is the best company to go to to get my pc upgraded to not top spec but good enough to the latest games in between minimum spec and top spec. A nice medium that isn't dragging the game to it's bear bones to play it and I don't really care all that much about having a system that plays Doom 3 on top spec. Well, I do care but simply don't have the dough!

Actually, as a point of reference, I want my PC that will play Sims 2 on full spec, how's that?

I don't want to buy a new pc, I just want it upgraded and don't want to be ripped off in the process. Oh and I'm totally dumb when it comes to pc's so it's company that's going to supply and fit it too.

Could you let me know how much I should be looking to pay for:

Ram
Hard Drive (if 20 gb's not enough)
Graphics Card
Processor (If I need one, like I said, I'm stupid)

And get it all fitted.

I really, really do appreciate this. If anyone can help me I am in your debt and will repay you one day "unless I can't find you or if I forget" Shrek 2 reference, just ignore that bit!

But thanks guys and gals, I know you can help me.
 
You say you wan a PC that will play Sims 2 on top spec, well in a reveiw in PC Format, it says it will need a 256mb gfx card to do this, and they aint cheap. So i'd get that idea out your head, unless you gonna rob a bank (if so, tell me cos i need money too).

You cant really upgrade your current PC, your just gonna have to buy a new one. You could build a decent base unit for around £400 - £500, which would play most of the games out today.

The things you'll need are:

A new motherboard £40 : Abit KV7
Processor £106 : AMD 3000XP
Memory £62 : 2x256 PC 2700
Graphics card £125 : Radeon 9800 Pro of course ;)
Case With PSU £60 : Chieftec Dragon
160 gig sata hard drive £67 : Maxtor Dimonadmax Plus 9

All that comes to £460, then you got postage and packaging which will probably take the total to around £480. You could shave the price downabit though, maybe get a 2800XP istead of a 3000XP, not much performance difference. And you could pick up a cheaper case with PSU for about £30. But this is just for a basic layout, of what you would need to fill the void in your gaming life.
 
what you could do is get a new motherboard, cpu, cpu fan, memory, and graphics card

then u could get someone to rip out your old components and put in the new ones. but think about this operation sit down on a table and list all the components u need and a price to match with this.

then id say go to a local pc shop and tell them of this plan, give them your old pc and get them to fit it all in for you. this will save you money, but like i said sit down think about it properly first.

you could reuse your harddrive, floppy drive ,cd drvies, cables and possibly your power supply.
its these components that you could save your money. i must make one point to u though, dont settle for an underrated motherboard, make sure u get a REALLY GOOD ONE! this is very very vital.

for the prices of parts, shop around on the intnernet look on sites fot this. but for the labour to fit it i think anything more than 50 quid is a rip off dont bother mate, theres probably ppl on this site that could do it cheaper for you!

and all in all good luck, always remember to do your RESEARCH before making a choice to buy a coponent!

good luck
 
Thanks for all the advice guys. I've had a look the Novatech website at a complete PC setup and the specs of the two I have my eye on are below.

2.0GHz AMD Athlon 64 3200
1024MB PC3200 400MHz DDR Dual Channel
160GB Serial ATA 7200rpm 8MB Cache
256MB DDR GeForce FX5200
DVD-ROM Drive
5.1 6-Channel Capable Sound
1 x RJ45 Network Port (10/100)
56K Modem

The above machine is: £699.12

3.2GHz 3.2GHz Intel Pentium 4 800MHz FSB
1024MB PC3200 400MHz DDR RAM
120GB Serial ATA 7200rpm 8MB Cache
256MB DDR GeForce FX5200 AGP Card
DVD-ROM Drive
12x Dual Layer +/- DVD Burner
5.1 6-Channel Capable Sound
1 x RJ45 Network Port (10/100)
56K Modem

The above machine is: £680.32.

If you look at my initial thread where I described the kind of performance I wanted, would the above machines be up to the task and run new release games nice and fast?

Put it this way, if you had £700.00 to spend on a complete set up minus a monitor, which one of those two would you buy or wouldn't you spend £700.00 on that kind of set up at all?

Come on, don't let me down cos you've been great so far.
 
They both have pretty lame graphics cards, and would be almost useless playing todays games. You should be looking at an FX 5700Ultra/ Radeon 9700Pro or higher.

You would definatly do better if you built it yourself.
 
Just out of interest lads, I've run The Sims 2 OK on a Hercules Radeon 128Mb 8500 / 2 x 256Mb of PC2700 / XP2400.

That's not to distract from the generally excellent advice given above, just thought I'd mention it :)
 
Thats just OK though flopps, this guy wants all the trimmings turned on, and i doubt even a 9800pro could do that.
 
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